


Science Fiction Double Feature

by Barb Cummings (Rahirah)



Series: The Barbverse [14]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Fluff, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-19
Updated: 2009-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahirah/pseuds/Barb%20Cummings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night at the drive-in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Science Fiction Double Feature

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the same universe as _A Raising in the Sun_, _Necessary Evils_, et. al. (See the [Barbverse Timeline](http://sleepingjaguars.com/buffy/viewpage.php?page=timeline) for specifics.) It contains spoilers for previous works in the series.

There's a chill in the air that swirls in when he opens the car door and slides in beside her, laden with popcorn and hot dogs and precariously balanced cups. She's always heard that autumn smells like burning leaves, but no one burns leaves in California; it's a fire hazard. Plus, very often, no leaves. But it feels like autumn anyway, and she smiles when he takes note of her slightly-exaggerated-for-effect shiver and offers her his jacket. It's not warm with his warmth, because he doesn't have any, but it smells like him, the smell of dark earth and cheap cigarettes, and she'll warm up soon enough.

You'd think her world would be all black and white: moonlight on tombstones, shadows on dew-silvered grass, streetlights on asphalt, platinum blond vampire and Starlite Black DeSoto. But the fat orange moon takes a crisp cookie-bite out of the night as it rises over the drive-in screen, gleaming on the tops of the cars in front of them, burgundy and silver and metallic green. The glossy leather seats of the DeSoto are festooned with red and blue concession-stand wrappers. Mustard oozes as she bites into her hot dog, sharp and yellow, and he licks her fingers clean with a wicked grin.

Technicolor monsters rampage across the screen. They crunch golden handfuls of popcorn, candy-striped bucket braced between their knees, and debate the eternal question of which is worse, crappy CGI or crappy stop-motion animation. When he waves his hand to illustrate a point his t-shirt strains across his chest, indigo fabric creasing over taut muscle. She catches his hand, laughing, and brings it to her breast. The fingers that creep up under her blouse to tease at her nipple are slick with fake butter. His eyes are the color of smoke in the darkness, and when they kiss, she can taste salt crystals melting on his lips.

When the thing on the screen steps down off it and drags the first couple screaming from their car, the two of them go to work, and it's not until later, rosy and panting over the celluloid corpse in the deserted lot, that she realizes her blouse is still half unbuttoned and the fleeing denizens of Sunnydale have been getting a free show. She snaps at him and he snaps back, and by the time they're finished his eyes are the color of the moon and she's splayed across the hood of the DeSoto, naked beneath the gaze of the phantoms on the screen. He growls his own triple-X subtitles into her ear, and her nails rake crimson furrows in the ivory of his skin, urging him on.

On the way home she snuggles down into his too-big jacket and drowses against his shoulder while he grumbles about the effect of demon blood on the car's finish. Just before she drifts off, she feels his arm go around her shoulders, a comforting circle of muscle and bone.

When she dreams, it's in living color.

END


End file.
